Ex-fertility doctor facing suit for using his own sperm is a former Mormon mission and temple president

Gerald E. Mortimer, the retired obstetrician/gynecologist who allegedly used his own sperm to impregnate a patient undergoing artificial insemination, served as president of an LDS Church temple and a church mission in the Philippines.

A lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Idaho names Mortimer, Linda G. McKinnon Mortimer, and Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Falls as defendants, accusing them of fraud and medical negligence.

Gerald Mortimer previously served as president of the Philippines San Pablo Mission and was also the area medical adviser for the Idaho Pocatello and Idaho Boise missions. Mortimer is originally from Payson, Utah, and his wife was born in Logan.

A Washington Post story published Tuesday detailed that Kelli Rowlette, who lives in Benton County, Wash., discovered Mortimer’s actions when she sent a DNA sample to the popular genealogy website Ancestry.com, and the test showed her DNA matched a sample from Mortimer, indicating he is her father.